News broke Wednesday that a 72-year-old former police officer was taken into custody Wednesday, accused of being the Golden State Killer, a serial rapist and killer who terrorized residents in the Bay Area, Sacramento area and Southern California in the late 1970s.

Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, joined by law enforcement leaders from throughout the state, announced that DNA evidence developed in the past six days had led to the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, who lived for more than three decades on a quiet suburban street in Citrus Heights.

FBI wanted poster shows drawings of a suspect known as the “Golden State Killer”. (AFP/Getty Images)

Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones confirmed reports that DeAngelo had worked at Auburn and other police departments in the 1970s. DeAngelo, who according to one report is the “good” father of three adult daughters, was booked into the Sacramento County Sheriff’s jail at about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday and is currently listed on suicide watch.

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The FBI previously described the Golden State Killer, also known as the East Area Rapist or the Original Night Stalker, as 5-foot-10-inches tall and said he would now be between the ages of 60 and 75. The FBI also believed that the Golden State Killer had an “interest in the military, or had some military training, leaving him familiar and proficient with firearms.”

DeAngelo reportedly was fired from Auburn’s police department after shoplifting, according to a newspaper article tweeted by Billy Jensen, a co-writer of the new book “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” about the Golden State Killer. The news clip from October 31, 1979 noted that DeAngelo was accused in 1979 of stealing a can of dog repellent and a hammer from a Sacramento drug store. The city manager was quoted in the article as saying that DeAngelo was dismissed after he “failed to answer any of the city’s investigations and did not request an administrative hearing.”

At one point back in the 1970s, DeAngelo asked his brother-in-law what he thought about the crime spree committed by the person then best known as the East Area Rapist, Oxygen.com reported.

James Huddle told a writer for Oxygen.com that his sister, identified by the Sacramento Bee as Sharon Huddle, was married to DeAngelo, though the brother-in-law said they were separated at some point. He said DeAngelo was a “good father” who had raised three daughters. He added that DeAngelo was into guns and ammunition as a hobby.

James Huddle recalled DeAngelo once casually bringing up the East Area Rapist case.

“He actually asked me about it once,” Huddle told Oxygen.com after just hearing that DeAngelo had been arrested. “He said, ‘What do you think of that East Area Rapist? What would you do, Jim?’” Huddle said he told DeAngelo that he’d attack the rapist if he caught him.

The Sacramento Bee reported that police had been outside DeAngelo’s home in Citrus Heights since Tuesday afternoon. Neighbors told reporters that DeAngelo had been living in the neighborhood for 30 yeas and described him as a “relatively nice guy” who was prone to “cursing outbursts you could hear down the street.”

RIGHT NOW: neighbors tell me Joseph James Deangelo, 72, has lived in this neighborhood for more than 30 years. Most describe him as active, relatively nice guy, would occasionally have cursing outbursts you can hear down the street. #EastAreaRapist#BREAKING@FOX40pic.twitter.com/XFbSHVN787

The Golden State Killer’s reign of terror included 12 homicides, 45 rapes and more than 100 residential burglaries between 1976 and 1986. His crimes began in the Sacramento area in 1976, and included the February 1978 killing of Brian and Katie Maggiore who were fatally shot while walking their dog in Rancho Cordova. He then moved into the Bay Area, where he committed 11 break-ins and sexual assaults in Concord, Walnut Creek, Danville, San Ramon, Fremont and San Jose in 1978 and 1979, before he moved onto Southern California in 1979.

From 1973 to 1979, DeAngelo was a police officer in California, according to the archived newspaper articles that Jensen shared. Jensen helped complete “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” after writer Michelle McNamara, the wife of comedian Patton Oswalt, died in 2016.

A 1973 newspaper article from The Exeter Sun, based in the Tulare County town of Exeter, revealed that a then-27-year-old DeAngelo was hired as a police officer in that town in August of that year, according to the website Heavy.com.

According to the Sun article, DeAngelo was a native of Bath, New York who served in Vietnam after graduating from Folsom Senior High School in June 1964. He competed an associate’s degree with honors in police science at Sierra College. He then graduated from California State University at Sacramento with a degree in criminal justice. At some point, he had also interned with the Roseville Police Department.

Records of the Golden State Killer’s attacks show that his last crime in the Bay Area occurred in Danville on July 5, 1979, when a masked man broke into a home on Sycamore Court. But a couple in the home managed to scare him off.

The next case attributed to the Golden State Killer was in early October 1979 — when a man broke into the home of a couple in Goleta, in Santa Barbara County. He tied them up and threatened to kill the woman, who broke free and alerted neighbors by screaming.

Later than same month, according to Auburn Journal archives, DeAngelo went on trial for the shoplifting case and was convicted by a jury on Oct. 31, the website Heavy.com said. A judge sentenced him to six months probation and a $100 fine.

Heavy.com added that DeAngelo served in the U.S. Navy and was engaged to be married in 1970. While he did not marry that woman, he went on to marry Sharon Huddle, the Sacramento Bee said, citing a wedding announcement in that paper.